...from when I was trying to decide if I was going to move, from the (quiet) (curly-haired) (adult daughter) of the (affable) resthome resident who used to work in (advertising), who herself had worked as a journalist and was getting into fiction:
"You'll never regret choosing to have more time."
. . .
(That is very true, I've realized; I miss the beach and friends and other stuff, but I do treasure the time here, even though I have endless lists of projects that I want to accomplish.)
At the one corn stand at the farmer's market that week -- the other one was gone by the time that I had got there, or had never showed up at all to sell their goods -- they had beside the normal list of prices a notice about the earworms.
It was like, this batch has earworms, so if you get a half dozen, a 7th is on us, and 2 free if you buy a dozen.
Still, though, a lot of people must have not been buying that corn, there was a lot more left than there usually is.
The other week at the farmer's market in the college town where I now live in, the corncobs had earworms and I was too late for any kale or any leafy greens, so I ended up buying more cucumbers then usual, all of which I carefully selected.
I then lay them on my counter to keep them there like I usually do, and after cleaning in my apartment, I noticed that there was a little spot of juice when I moved one, although I assumed that that was just some water left over there from when I had wiped down the counter with a wet rag.
Like a day or two after that, though, when I went to move the cucumbers, I noticed that one had a little bit of just the faintest gray on one end, and when I went to move it, my hands immediately pushed through the skin, since it was rotting here and there on the surface, and in deep ragged cavities in like two places.
I immediately put it under running water and I ran my hands over it to get rid of all that, and I cut out the two cavity parts and ate it right away, but otherwise, I was wondering, how did it go bad so fast, when it had looked so normal?
I had had something like that happen at the very beginning of the summer with a cucumber that I had boughten without scrutinizing carefully, but now, it's happened again, which makes me think that this is some sort of problem endemic to cucumbers.
The other night I turned off the over-mirror lights in my bathroom after I was done using the bathroom, and they wouldn't turn off, though they had an occasional flicker.
So, I killed them with the safety switch on the nearest outlet.
Recently four things brought me back to the city that I used to live in:
1) When I visited there recently for a concert I rode the same subway line that I had ridden for like fifteen years before its safety and security started slipping... Just more seediness on platforms that you never used to see it on, like odd people with plastic-bagged belongings just slouching about, and like twice during daytime/evening-slightly-off-peak-but-not-crazy hours I had just missed a train, and it was 18-20 minutes until the next one. And, even late at night, the maximum frequency used to be like 15 minutes between trains!
2) During the first day of school, it came across my social media feed, someone's experiences on the morning of the first day of school, where it was like 20 minutes between trains on a major line and on a major street the bus was full, and it was like 37 minutes until the next one.
(Between the two, I simply can't imagine still being in the city that I used to live in, and still being dependent on public transportation, and still facing crap like this for the past 2 years, like I was for almost a year before I decided to move.)
3) When I was cleaning out papers in my apartment, I went through my table where I had health insurance and tax stuff, so I could put that away in my files... I had kept 3 piles of health insurance stuff, 1 with my fly-by-night lowest-cost-on-the-ACA-marketplace insurer from back then, and then successive years of my new insurer in the college town where I live now.
I have *still* been getting whack bills that I've had to challenge all the way back from some screening stuff in 2021 -- a big part of the reason that I've been keeping stuff out in piles! -- whereas now when I went back and excavated stuff, I saw that there were two brief "blips" of billing problems with my new insurer -- the first time I had used insurance when I was here for Covid booster stuff and a physical, someone forgot to input my insurance number, and once with a third-party provider -- but they were quickly, quickly resolved, and otherwise everything operated smoothly.
And, it was also striking to me how I've default had continuity of care here, versus an endless revolving door of insurers and providers back in the city that I used to live in. Sure, there's problems like I can't get an appointment right away and I have to check back in if there's cancellations or something, but it's just low-level normalcy aggravation, versus what was just unbelievable hassle to get mere basics.
4) I saw like 2 bits of crime stuff in the news, where a robbery crew hit a restaurant on the main business strip in the neighborhood that I used to live in, and then on the same spree they were all the way in the neighborhood where my one (assisted living) client with (disabilities) used to live, and they robbed the little neighborhood supermarket there on a weekday evening.
Also, over a few weeks there was a few armed robberies on another business strip on a main street just north of where I used to live, where I used to go to this great bar and walk home sometimes at night like midnight - 1 - 2 am, always without a problem, and where you'd never hear of anything happening.
(Just too many close calls and weird stuff still happening in places where I used to frequent, it was a good decision to move.)
After finishing a submittable draft of a gigantic academic article the larger project of which I've been working on for almost 2 years now, as well as after submitting the "next steps" of the other big (and sexy!) academic idea that I've had and was half-done and is now researched enough to be ready to debut in full, I undertook just mounds of cleaning at my apartment: some old boxes in the basement, layers of paper on my kitchen table and another place where I'd throw bills and tax form stuff.
I've also been working some extra shifts at the (Thai) restaurant where I work now, because my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker is out of town to attend a K-Pop concert for the one group that she's a superfan of.
And, I lost track of where I was with blog posts!
I thought I had one cued up for today, and I didn't.
Oops.
It's been a while since that happened.
I'm thinking of taking my first huge multi-multi-week vacation sometime towards the end of next year, too, I'll really have to plan ahead with posts for then if that ends up happening...
Tips were very good around student move-in due to parents in town, and this one week I was working a few extra shifts since the restaurant owners were back in (Thailand) with their family and because my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker asked me to work one night since she had (bad period pain), and so for like 30 hours across 6 shifts in one week I made my complete basic living expenses for the entire month (rent, utilities, groceries).
It's rather astounding... One night even clocked in at like $32.40 an hour, between tips and base wage!
I really wouldn't have been able to do this even a few years ago, or back in the city that I used to live in.
For one, the recent increases in tipped minimum wage are what really makes the overall economic difference, to make it a worthwhile job, and you'd have been better off with a consistent job in eldercare even just a few years ago.
For another, if I lived back in the city that I used to live in, it's hard to get set up in a high-paying service industry job, and even if you do get a toehold somewhere decent, you'd need to work a lot more because it costs more to live there, and once you start pushing past 30 hours a week, you're just permanently tired, since it's such a physically-demanding job.
